Robert Henry Thurston

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Robert Henry Thurston (1839-1903) was the first professor of mechanical engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology (in 1871). There he established Stevens’ mechanical engineering curriculum. Historians credit Thurston with establishing the first US mechanical engineering laboratory for conducting funded research at an academic institution for higher learning. He was the first president (1880-82) of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Thurston was a professor at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis and a published specialist on iron and steel as well as steam engines, when he was invited in 1871 by Stevens’ president Henry Morton to head mechanical engineering at Stevens. He was committed to the French and German science-based models of technical education and soon would gain an international reputation for his view of engineering as applied science. His enthusiasm in involving students in funded research led to remarkable pioneering success of the early Stevens’ graduates.

Thurston held two patents: one an autographic recording testing machine for material in torsion and the other a machine for testing lubricants. In 1875, he also developed the three-coordinate solid diagram for testing iron, steel, and other metals. He was widely published in the areas of materials, thermodynamics, steam engines and boilers, friction and energetics.

In 1885, he received an honorary Degree of Engineering from Stevens. He left in 1885 to replace John Edison Sweet as director of Sibley College at Cornell University, reorganizing it as a college of mechanical engineering.

He was born October 25, 1839, in Providence, Rhode Island, and died October 25, 1903, in Ithaca, New York.

[edit] References

ASME History and Heritage Committee (1980); Mechanical Engineers in America Born Prior to 1861: A Biographical Dictionary. New York: ASME. Library of Congress No. 79-57364.

Calvert, Monte A. Mechanical Engineer in America, 1830-1910: Professional Cultures in Conflict. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967.

Clark, Geoffrey W. (2000); History of Stevens Institute of Technology: A Record of Broad-Based Curricula and Technogenesis. Jersey City, New Jersey: Jensen/Daniels.

Sinclair, Bruce (1980); A Centennial History of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 1880-1980. (Toronto: Published for ASME by University of Toronto Press, 1980). ISBN 0-8020-2380-0.